Ship of Smoke and Steel

by Django Wexler

  Meroe is curled up on her sleeping mat, facing the wall. I sit beside her.

  “I talked to the Scholar,” I say. “He’s taking me to the Captain tonight.”

  She doesn’t respond. Her breathing is quiet and snuffly.

  “This is going to work. I will make it work. We will get off this rotting ship, and find Tori, and … and I don’t know where we’ll go after that, but you will come with us.”

  Meroe shifts slightly, pulling in her knees a little tighter.

  “It wasn’t your fault, Meroe.”

  When her voice finally emerges, it’s a whisper. “Of course it’s my fault.”

  “None of us would have been there if not for me,” I say. “I thought … I thought I was strong enough that we’d be all right.”

  “Berun only came because I told him to,” Meroe says. “He has—had—a crush on me.”

  I hadn’t known she knew about that. She does a good job of seeming oblivious.

  “And then,” Meroe goes on, “I tried to help him, and he turned into that thing. And then he rotting exploded. So don’t try to tell me it’s not my fault.”

  “He was dying,” I say. “I told you to help him, even though you didn’t think you could. There was nothing—”

  “Rotting gods, Isoka, will you shut up?!” Her voice is a croak. “I’m not your rotting puppet. I decided to help you, to try to save Berun, everything. I decided. And that means…”

  She trails off, and there’s a long silence. After a moment, I tentatively put a hand on her shoulder.

  “Don’t rotting touch me!”

  I snatch the hand back, as though I’d touched a hot stove. Meroe curls herself tighter, her shoulders shaking with silent sobs.

  “My father,” she says after a while, “made the wrong choice, sending me to Soliton. He should have slit my throat when he had the chance.”

  “Meroe, please.” There are tears in my eyes.

  “Don’t pretend you aren’t thinking it,” she says. “I know what I am. A rotting ghulwitch. Anyone who can do something like that can’t be allowed to live.”

  I sit beside her, head bowed, and I can’t find anything to say.

  “Would you kill me? If I asked you to?” Meroe says.

  I swallow. “No.”

  “It could have been you, you know. It’s only dumb luck that I saved you, and it didn’t end up like that.”

  “You knew you couldn’t help Berun,” I say quietly. “You told me.”

  “I’d do it myself, but I know I’m too much of a coward.” She takes a deep breath. “Don’t worry. I’m sure somebody on Soliton will be willing to kill me, if I tell them what I am.” She snorts a laugh. “Maybe I’ll ask the Butcher.”

  Another silence. I take a long breath.

  “When I was eleven years old,” I tell her, very quietly, “I decided I wanted to die. It had been … a bad year. My friends, the boys and girls I’d spent my childhood with on the streets, were dying. Two boys got the red fever and puked up their guts. The rest of us left them to rot under a bridge. My best friend, Seria, got taken by the kidcatchers.” I close my eyes. “She must have put up too much of a fight. We found her naked in an alley with her throat slit. It seemed like Kahnzoka wanted us to die. That was just what was supposed to happen to street children. And I was cold and so hungry and tired of fighting it.”

  I knot my fingers together in my lap. Meroe says nothing.

  “One night I was sitting there, with Tori leaning against me, half a blanket wrapped around both of us and still shivering. And I thought, Why not? I had a knife, a little thing barely more than a potato peeler, but I knew how to reach the heart.” One of my hands goes to my own chest, the spot on the left side behind my breast, the gap in the ribs. Where I’d put my blade into Shiro. “It would hurt for a moment, and then it would be over.

  “But there was Tori. She was seven years old. If I died, she wouldn’t survive long, between the kidcatchers and the cold. So I put her in my lap, and I took out my knife. And I tried to work up my nerve.

  “I thought she was asleep. But when she felt the knife against her skin, she opened her eyes. She didn’t scream or cry. She just looked up at me, only half-awake, and she smiled and said, ‘You’ll come, too, right?’”

  I had never told anyone about that night. Not Hagan, not any one of the boys who’d shared my bed. I don’t even know if Tori remembers. Maybe she thinks it was a dream.

  “I couldn’t do it. Obviously. I couldn’t hurt Tori, and I couldn’t leave her behind. That meant the only thing to do was protect her.” I let out a breath. “It wasn’t long after that that my Melos powers came, and I found out that hurting people was something I was very good at. But it was all right, because it was for her.”

  I open my eyes. Meroe has rolled over, watching me from behind a fringe of disheveled hair.

  “Why are you telling me this?” she says. “Is it supposed to make me feel better? My sisters wouldn’t stop to piss on my grave if I died. One less obstacle between them and the throne.”

  “They can go rot. I’m not going to kill you, Meroe, and I’m not going to leave you behind.”

  “You just get to decide that, without consulting me?”

  “It’s my choice to make.”

  She sits up. Her face is streaked with tears, and her hair has escaped from its knot to hang curly and loose across her face.

  “I should never have let you help me,” she says. “I should have left you to die in the Deeps. You stupid, arrogant—”

  I kiss her.

  It’s a tentative kiss, a brush of my lips against hers. For a moment she sits frozen. Then she leans into me, her mouth opening under mine, desperate and hungry.

  I close my eyes, and so her foot slamming into my gut catches me completely unaware. I double over, gasping, as she scrambles away, her back to the wall. Her eyes are very wide.

  “Get out,” she says.

  “I’m sorry.” My voice is a wheeze. “Meroe, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t—”

  “Get. Out.”

  I get to my feet, clutching my stomach, and stagger to the door. Meroe stares after me, her face a mask.

  * * *

  That night, I climb the long stairs up to the deck, trudging around the spiral until my legs burn. The dredwurm’s eye is a weight in my pocket.

  Why did I do that? For a moment I’d been so certain. I’d thought—

  What? That Meroe would appreciate being suddenly slobbered on? Blessed’s balls, Isoka, how would you feel if some strange woman started kissing you without so much as asking?

  And now I’d knocked the whole thing into the Rot.

  I just hope—oh, Blessed, I hope so hard it makes my chest hurt—that she doesn’t do anything stupid before I get back.

  And the Captain had better hope, for his own sake, that he has some good answers.

  Another three turns to the top.

  I could have hinted: So, Meroe, did you have crushes on any stableboys back at the palace? Or … Something like that, but not stupid.

  Jack had said … but Jack is a little bit crazy.

  Rot, rot, rot. Focus, Isoka.

  I reach the top, and get my bearings. There’s no one waiting to guide me, but the Captain’s tower looms overhead, a black slice cut out of the starscape. The breeze of Soliton’s passage ruffles my hair—longer, now, than I usually let it get—and flaps my shirt against the still-tender skin of my back.

  A single light is burning in the empty space where the Council held its audience. The Scholar waits between the two silent angels, cane in one hand and lantern in the other. His spectacles are circles of darkness obscuring his face.

  “You’re late,” he says.

  “It’s been a long day,” I say. “If someone else is offering you a dredwurm’s eye, you’re welcome to deal with them instead.”

  He grins. “Zarun and the others have found no sign of the dredwurm’s passage today. They are … unhappy.”

  “Then let�
��s get this over with.”

  He nods. I glance up at the angels, but they’re dark, with no sign of a faceted gem, blue or red. For a moment I try to twist into the strange state of mind that let me pull at the gray energy, but I don’t have the concentration for it, and it only makes my head hurt. I scowl, and hurry after the Scholar.

  We take a roundabout approach to the tower, walking a circuitous path across the deck of the ship and cutting through the shadows of several rusted-out structures. The Scholar’s cane taps out a steady rhythm, so I don’t bother trying to move quietly.

  “Your … energy. What you call the Eddica Well.”

  He looks over his shoulder. “You still don’t believe me, I take it?”

  “I believe that it exists. I just don’t think you’ve got the whole story.” I hesitate. “If the spirits of the dead are powering the ship, can we speak to them?”

  “No,” he says. “Eddica taps the energy of the dead. Not their minds, not their essence. Those are gone.”

  I want to tell him he’s wrong, just to wipe the smug look off his face. But something tells me I’m better off keeping a few cards to myself.

  We’ll see what the Captain has to say first.

  Finally, we make our approach to the Captain’s tower, from the side instead of straight on. It’s longer than it is wide, and canted slightly backward, like an oval pipe plunged at an angle into Soliton’s stern. There’s a small doorway here, covered by a scrap-metal door. A canvas shelter stands beside it.

  “This is normally the guardpost,” the Scholar says. “Fortunately, arranging the rotations is among my duties. I doubt anyone will notice the lapse.”

  “What about the angel?”

  He nods, fishes in his pocket, and presents me with a small silver necklace, the kind of thing that you might buy for a sweetheart if you were moderately well-off and cloyingly sentimental. I frown at it.

  “That is the key to the tower?”

  He shrugs. “It’s just a token of the Captain’s permission. There’s no magic to it.” He holds it up by the chain, puts his cane under his arm, and extends his other hand.

  I pull the eye out of my pocket and hand it over, taking the necklace in return. The chain slithers into a heap, cool against my skin.

  “If you’re lying…,” I begin.

  “Then the angel will tear you to shreds?” He grins.

  “Then you’d better hope you’re right about the spirits of the dead,” I say. “Because I’ll come for you.”

  “Fair enough.” He inclines his head, then offers me the lantern. “I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

  * * *

  The bottom floor of the Captain’s tower is completely dark and very, very still.

  I hold the lantern high, but it’s a tiny light in a vast space. The ceiling is at least thirty feet overhead, meaning this chamber takes up a substantial portion of the tower. There are no other doors that I can see, just the blank metal deck, with rusted patches like anywhere else on the ship.

  At the rear of the chamber, a set of steep stairs, nearly a ladder, goes straight up the slightly canted wall of the tower. In front of those stairs, its head nearly brushing the ceiling, stands the angel.

  This one is more humanoid than most. It looks a bit like two men standing side by side, but merged at the shoulder, down one side of the torso, and along their central leg, giving it a grand total of three. The body is mannequin smooth, without definition, hands and feet just shapeless lumps, its two heads blank. But three human faces, rendered in great detail, stare out from its massive, merged chest. One laughs, one screams, and one weeps.

  I don’t know who designed these things, but they belong in a madhouse.

  I take out the silver necklace and hold it by the chain as I approach. The angel doesn’t stir, for all the world as though it were simply a statue. But it isn’t. As I get closer, I can see motes of gray light running through it, just below its surface, and hear voices babbling at the edge of hearing.

  Spirits, the Scholar said.

  Rot. Dead is dead.

  Either way, I give the thing a wide berth, edging around it to reach the stairs. Whatever the necklace is, it works, because the angel doesn’t so much as twitch. I shove the charm back into my pocket and start to climb, awkwardly holding the lantern in one hand.

  When I get to the second floor, it’s disappointingly ordinary. Some kind of storeroom, half-full of crates and barrels, all of which are old enough that they’re crumbling with rot. The lantern light illuminates patches of colorful mushrooms, but not much more. I continue onward.

  The next level looks more like a barracks. A half-dozen Jyashtani-style beds line one wall, plain and utilitarian, while heavy trunks are pushed against the other. There’s no sign of the occupants, though, and once again everything looks old. The sheets are frayed to translucence, with patches of mold growing across them. Bits of floating fungus and dust shimmer in the air when they catch the light, like drifting snow.

  The ceilings in here are high. From the height of the tower, the next level must be the last. I grit my teeth, and keep climbing.

  Unlike the rest of the tower, this level is divided in half by a wooden partition. The stairway ends in what looks like a nobleman’s dining room, wedged awkwardly into the metallic semi-circle. There’s a huge hardwood table, surrounded by chairs trimmed in crumbling velvet. A silver candelabra is nearly black with tarnish. More heavy wooden furniture sits against the walls, a sideboard and a chest of drawers, bronze fittings turned green and the wood itself starting to flake away. Fungus and mold are everywhere, waterfalls of the stuff dripping from the table and hanging in curtains on the walls. The floor, once covered with thick carpets, sends up bursts of swirling dust whenever I take a step, which hangs in the air as though trapped in liquid.

  The wooden wall is falling apart, too, one section dangerously bowed. There’s a door in the middle, which hangs open a few inches. I pause for a moment, listening, but there’s no sound at all.

  What in the Rot is going on here?

  There’s no point in trying to hide my presence, since my boots made enough racket climbing the stairs to wake the dead. But I find myself reluctant to shout, anyway. The silence has the same oppressive quality as a library, or a tomb. I manage to clear my throat and say, “Hello? Is anyone here?”

  There’s no answer. I step forward, raising a cloud of disintegrating carpet, and head for the door.

  It swings open a few more inches at my touch, hinges groaning. I slide through, and find myself in a bedroom, as opulently furnished as the antechamber. There’s a huge four-posted bed, with moldy sheets and ragged lace fringes. A wardrobe, its doors hanging open, revealing the tattered remnants of someone’s finery. And another table, with a single wing-backed chair pulled up to it. There’s a set of pens and a desiccated inkwell, along with some scraps that might once have been paper.

  In the chair, reclining as though at ease, is a corpse.

  It’s still mostly intact. One arm has fallen away at the elbow, but the other rests in its lap, bones covered with withered scraps of skin. It wears a fine silk dressing gown, with a layer of hanging mold and dust. The skull stares at me, eye sockets gaping wide, tiny red-capped mushrooms pushing up from within. Here and there, gold gleams in the lantern light. A necklace, rings, a bracelet. The trappings of power and wealth.

  Of a captain?

  “Hello?” It’s a stupid, stupid thing to do, but I can’t not speak. Dead is dead, except that maybe it isn’t. I don’t really expect the skeleton to move, to stand up and speak, to lurch forward, grasping fingers extended—

  —but I have my blades ready, just in case—

  Nothing happens, of course. Dead is dead. And the corpse is just a corpse, left here for long, long years, undisturbed.

  I cross the room, raising more dust. Behind the table, there’s a set of shelves, and here the room shows signs of being recently visited. Another set of footprints is visible in the dust, and t
he ghostly imprints of objects that have been removed. Books, from the look of things.

  “What in the rotting Blessed’s name is going on?” The rage bubbles up in me, all at once. I lash out, kicking the old table, and it goes over in a shower of dust and floating spores. The skeleton glares at me, its frozen expression disapproving.

  “Now, now,” says the Scholar, from behind me. “That’s not a very nice way to treat poor old Mahjir’s furniture.”

  I spin, blades igniting with a crackle-hiss. Before he can take a single step backward, I’m on top of him, Melos energy spitting a half inch from his throat. I watch him swallow.

  “Only me,” he says. “Sorry to startle you.”

  “What is this supposed to be?” My voice is low and dangerous.

  “The Captain’s tower?”

  “So where’s the rotting Captain?” I snap. “This bastard has been dead for a century.”

  “His name was Mahjir Sepha,” the Scholar says. “I found his journal. He was a nobleman from Jyashtan, who came into his power young. A little mad, I think, if we’re being honest. He’d heard the legends of Soliton and determined to offer himself and some of his mage-blood retainers as a sacrifice.” He gestures at the room. “You can see that he liked to travel in style.”

  “And?”

  “He set up shop here in the tower. Seemed appropriate, since he wanted to be the ship’s master.”

  “He became Captain?”

  “He called himself Captain.”

  I press the blade closer to the Scholar’s skin. Green lightning arcs to his collar, crackling down his robe. “Start explaining. Was this Mahjir Captain or not? What happened to him?”

  “He died. I’m not sure exactly how. Obviously he didn’t write that part down.” The Scholar nods, carefully, to the corpse. “It doesn’t look like it was violent, though. This is just the way he was when I first saw him.”

  “So the Captain is dead.” My throat has gone thick, tasting of dust and mold. “That’s what you’re telling me?”

  “No, Deepwalker.” The Scholar sighs. “What I’m telling you is that there is no Captain. There never was.”